My info comes from years of study and practice / experience and speaking / working with others... personally, I don't think the astrological signs have as much to do with it as many do, as if that were true I should be heavy into water, which is actually one of my weaker elements.

And yes, you can be drawn to energies that you are missing... there is a lot of eastern philosophy that revolves around that, from the simple too much yin or yang to the 5 element theory of the constructive and destructive cycles of metal, water, wood, fire and earth.

The more you study and work with energies and get to know them, harmonize with them... the more attuned you will become with them. This is true of most anything... knowledge, skillsets, etc.

I would have to say water for the most part. Water seems to love me, Wind likes me, Earth tolerates me, and Fire wants me dead. Winter is the season I like best, but here in Texas we don't get much winter Trees are another big one, when I first moved to the city I nearly had a breakdown. All the trees are so different from back home, so tame and half dead, no will of their own to speak of, going from forest and farm to big city wasn't so fun, it took 2 weeks for me to calm down and learn to deal with the energy change.

CHL I know just what you mean!!! I could be about ready to kill someone and the slightest smell of rain will calm me down instantly. If I have nothing better to do and a storm comes in I'll go for a walk in the rain and afterwards I feel so clean and refreshed.

Maybe now you're starting to understand that while I may have been born predispositioned to be pretty batty, my parents saw to it that it was a certainty and completely unavoidable. -Me

I connect with all the elements. Or perhaps more appropriately said, I have no trouble connecting with the living spirits of the elements. I have no trouble connecting to most spirits at all. I've always prefered fire, to earth, but I think that was because I used to think I was a capricorn, and I was trying to prove that I was one. Then I had a friend who did horoscopes professionally tell me that I was 6 minutes too early to be a capricorn. I'm actually a Sagitarius.

I do connect with the spirits well, it's people I don't understand.

Trying to create a world, even in words, is good occupational therapy for lunatics who think they're God, and an excellent argument for Polytheism. -S.M. Stirling

Kitsune wrote:
I'm seeing the moon, or night as a recurrant theme. Has anyone ever had a connection with scenery?

Not one part of Nature, but a part that includes many elements that you may not usually be able to work with, but because the energy has become so connected, you can.

Actualy, my tale can link these two together.

I was in Glencoe, North west Scotland. Plenty of mountains, Trees, sea water loch. Great place. In the middle of this loch is an "Island". Hmm. I will say "island", but it is only that at very high tide, when the narrow cause way is covered.

Any way, it was September, a perfectly cloudless night, full moon, and you could see about 2000 stars (Contratry to "poetics" only 2000 to 2500 starts are visible to the naked eye, not the Thousands, of the romantic writters).

I was laying on this island and could see all these stars, with the bowl of the mountains as a "horizon". It was brilliant. But then, it was as if the stars were bieng sucked down a whirl pool. It was like the whole milky way was bieng viewed as a "WHOLE", not just from the outer edge of some small arm.

Not ONE constellation was reccognisable. A REALLY strange experience.

It ended as fast as it began, jut suddenly, every thing was back in it's place.

But, the scenery, was all important. The water, the reflection of the mountains, and forests, the feeling of raw power that formed the rock, all came together with the stars to give an atmosphere, or view, of what it looked like to the God, or Godess, that said "O.K chaps, lets have a bit of bloody order here" ZAP, and there was order."

I have also had similar experience in the Arctic.

On bridge watch at 0300, engines stopped, every one asleep, except me.

The water was perfectly flat , and the ice bergs were reflected perfectly in the surface. Some were blue bergs. Which are the coulour of the blue in the Swedish flag (Google it ), but perfectly see through. It is like a big rock of glass, just floating there silent.

I went down to the jack staff at the bow (pointy end). I was the furthest north person in the whole world, that was awake.

Then the dolphins came up. No noise, just doing dolphin surfing things. then dissapearing under the ice.

Magic moments that would no have happened without the scenery. Which is, after all, our home. Spiritualy or physically. It is the scenery that makes the land, which forms the people, creates the culture etc. We are inseperable from the scenery.

What it usually is with scenery is the combination of energies combing from the items that make up the area that is effecting you. (usually. I'm not talking about subconscious or emotional response to a given image, but actual energetic connection here) This is actually one of the purposes of asian gardens. To balance out the Chi/qi/ki so that the flow of it is as harmonized as possible. At least in the general sense. There are also garden types that focus on very specific effects or reactions, like healing, calming, bringing peace or happiness, inner strength, etc.

There are also (though not always, or even often, asian) elemental gardens, which are gardens where the plants that are used are dedicated to a given element, or where the garden is segmented and each area is dedicated to a given element and planted and arranged for such. When done right, being in these gardens, you feel that elemental energy flowing around you, filling you if you open to it, coursing over you, etc.

And then, of course, there are the totally natural forms of these gardens... the mountain vistas, or glens.... the forest meadows, the woodland paths, the places that nature made that when you stumble across them, you feel the energy of the place just pour over you and connect with something inside.

So, yes, there is a type of "scenery" that can be connected to.

There is also the psycho/emotional response that one can have to scenery that has nothing to do with energy, such as we would get at looking at a picture or seeing something on TV or what not. That's not really an energetic connection, but it is still a kind of connection. Chances are that if you went to the place depicted, you would connect at some energetic level, even if only very lightly... you'd feel fairly "at home" in such a place.

I live in a tiny village in Wales tucked between the mountains and the sea. Whilst I've always been fond of our local seaside, it is the mountains that I love most. I'm a classic Earth lover, I adore walking up the mountainside, feeling the craggy stones and springy ferns under my feet and I find I feel even better when I walk on the mountain barefoot (I haven't fallen foul of anything yet, so the Lord and Lady must like it too )

There are small stone circles up on the mountains too and they're so well hidden and accepted as part of the landscape that you almost don't see them until you're practically on top of them. I love wild places, wild mountainsides, wild moors, wild woods.

I connect with the earth and the wind mainly, I find water calming to look at and float on and I love being out in the rain. Fire scares me a little though. I love to watch a flame on a candle, flames are beautiful, but I always have an uneasy feeling at the same time. I never get out of my mind that fire can destroy things so quickly and completely.

I don't fare well in environments with harsh sunlight, but I love the gentle sun of the springtime and full moons send my emotions all over the place.

As for seasons I was born in the winter and I love the snow, but I seem to connect more with spring and autumn, the times when the world is waking up and getting sleepy again

"If you trust in yourself and believe in your dreams and follow your star...you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy. Goodbye." - Miss Tick, Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men

I don't disrespect fire, in fact, by not using it all the time and only lighting ritual candles for sabbats, I feel that I am invoking the positive nature of fire and limiting the dangeous aspect of it. If I was to use fire in all of my rituals there is a chance I could be complacent and have no house!

I know very well about the destructive powers of water and earth, however. A few miles along the river Conwy there is a village that floods with the slightest shower of rain. The river bursts its banks regularly every Spring. And as for earth, in midwales in the 60s there was the landslide disaster at Aberfan where a heap of earth slid down the mountainside and covered a school. A lot of children and teachers died as a result.

As for fire, I just have an unease about it. It's not an element I feel good about working with. With water I can see images in the smooth face of a pond or see patterns in the currents of rivers and with earth I use stones, rocks and crystals to enhance feelings and qualities. Even with wind I can see patterns cast in fallen leaves stirred by the breeze, but fire is difficult to read.

"If you trust in yourself and believe in your dreams and follow your star...you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy. Goodbye." - Miss Tick, Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men

Not to chide you but to add a little something, to give credit to the gentle side of one of my favourite elements (which I also used to be deathly afraid of!! Past life issues... won't go there today LOL)...

Nothing can bring people closer together than to talk around a fire. Issues come out into the open and just seem to be transmuted by the fire between people. Friends come closer together, stories just seem to be drawn out by its heat, lovers enjoy wonderful nights, rituals are given atmosphere, cathedrals glow, children roast marshmallows and bond with family...

This is what I see when I see fire.

Crazy Healer LadyHealth and happiness to you!

The purpose of a relationship is not to have another who might complete you, but to have another with whom you might share your completeness. -CWG

As my old Sergeant was fond of saying; "Give a man a torch, he will be warm for a night. Set him on fire he will be warm the rest of his life."

Which won't be for very long after you set him on fire I get the symbolism though

Kitsune, I didn't think you were putting me down No hard feelings! Everyone has different feelings about their faith and the elements involved, that's why this is such a personal thing. Everyone has different opinions and if we didn't share them we wouldn't grow! I took on board your comments even though fire is still not the easiest element for me to get along with

And a pleasant Mabon to all!

"If you trust in yourself and believe in your dreams and follow your star...you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy. Goodbye." - Miss Tick, Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men